Mets Card of the Week: 2014 Matt Harvey

Episode 7F16 of The Simpsons is a classic entry from 1991 named “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”– a title cribbed from Preston Sturges’ 1941 comedy Sullivan’s Travels, and later appropriated by the Coen brothers for their Depression-era riff on Homer’s “Odyssey.”

In the episode, Homer (the Springfieldian one, not the ancient Greek) discovers through a cascading series of events that he has a long-lost half-brother. Herb Powell (voiced by Danny DeVito) turns out to be the rich, successful head of a Detroit-based auto company. But for all his wealth, Herb is lonely at his core, and longs for a family and roots.

The revelation that he has a half-brother overjoys Herb, who invites the Simpson clan to visit his mansion. He indulges the kids to no end, and decides that average-man Homer would be the perfect person to design the next flagship vehicle of Powell Motors.

Given free rein, Homer concocts a Frankensteinian mashup of the Edsel, the Tucker, and George Jetson’s flying saucer. The bubble-domed, tail-finned monstrosity that is “The Homer” has a list price of $82,000, and leads to the swift bankruptcy of Powell Motors soon after it is unveiled.

Which leads us to this 2014 Topps Mini Die-Cut Matt Harvey. This one-in-eight-pack insert is essentially “The Homer” in baseball-card form. It starts off as a riff on the unloved 1989 Topps set, then adds team-colored borders, mini formatting, and inessential die-cutting to the misbegotten original design.

“His life was an unbridled success… until he found out he was a Simpson.”

And even though this is a pretty depressing episode, it ends with Bart telling Homer that he liked the car. And in that spirit, I’ll say this isn’t the worst card ever. I actually like the orange border (but not the shadow effect) and the in-action, tight crop picture of Harvey is pretty good.

There’s no way this is worse than the mid-90s card of Brian McRae with the rap lyrics that you did earlier.